Alastair Reynolds

Weird things are happening at sea, the Earth is apparently being invaded (again), and the Master seems to be involved... but how? And why is everyone starting to forget who he is?

Much of this novel feels very, very much like a typical Third Doctor episode. In addition to the Master and an invasion of crablike aliens, we've got oil rigs, UNIT blowing things up, sinister government bureaucrats, even a nod towards environmental themes. But there are also sections of it that take place billions show more of years in the future which feel much bigger and rather stranger, would doubtless have required far too many special FX to have been filmed in the 70s, and include a reference or two to the 21st century incarnation of the show.

It's a decent adventure and, unlike most of the Who novels I've read that've been published in the last 20 years, not one that feels like it's squarely aimed at younger readers. There are some imaginative story elements. The character voices are good, and the interactions between the Doctor and the Master convey a bit of a sense of just how complicated the relationship between them is. And the Master gets some really interesting moments. I'm not 100% sure how I feel about some of them, but they're unquestionably interesting.

I'm not sure, ultimately, how well the plot works, though. It's very timey-wimey in a way that makes less sense the more I think about it and plays much more fast and loose with temporal paradoxes than usual. It plays even more fast and loose with the nature of the Doctor's exile on Earth, reading, honestly, as if the author forgot that the Doctor didn't have control over the TARDIS at this point in his story and had to go back and edit in some unconvincing handwaving as an explanation for him being able to freely bop back and forth across the eons.

Anyway. This was worth reading, especially as someone who always enjoys a Master story, but maybe not quite as special as I was hoping for, given the good things I'd heard about it and what a big name Alastair Reynolds is in SF. show less

Oh, Alastair, my dude. I do still love you but this book is not your finest hour. I’ve — I’ve got some issues with this, is what I’m saying.

Okay, so. First issue: we’ve recently had the dubious pleasure, in Reynolds’s work, of watching a man lose his faith in democracy book by book. Reynolds created a “perfectly democratic” society, and for a long time had almost no interest in it — his earlier books focus on various other elements of his universe, or on what happens after show more this society crashes and burns. And then comes his Dreyfuss thing (we’ll get to that), and now he is interested in his perfect democracy — except it’s less and less perfect, the more he writes about it. In this book, he more or less destroys it. The democracy, like the cake, is a lie! It’s pretty obvious he can’t believe in a huge group of people voting and managing to steer a society well for any length of time, and it’s pretty obvious — I’m pointing here at the entire world, but at Brexit and Trump in particular — why.

So that is kind of interesting, although I think, um, he’s milked all of whatever remained of the interest out of it in this book. Which is unfortunate, because I gather from the numbering and labeling scheme of this book that he’s going to stay on his Dreyfuss bullshit for a while, and wow I wish he would not. Dreyfuss is everything that a Reynolds character, once upon a time, was not: generic, bland, and nearly personalityless. His main character traits are that he is wise (good at patterns and with intuition!) and tired (so, so tired). His main motivation is Justice. His main sorrow is his refrigerated wife (such sorrow, so much guilt, he had to refrigerate her himself for the Good of Society, o woe, o wife, o life!). I — seriously, this is not the best Reynolds has. Not even close. I could hit a dozen of Dreyfuss from where I’m sitting, and that would be in books on *my* shelves, and I hate this character. But he’s ubiquitous. And so, so very done before. Reynolds can — or once could — do better.

Beyond that, the plot of this book is — honestly pretty basic. I saw where it was going a looooong time before we got there, and spent most of the second half of the book going, yes, yes, can we speed this up? Unfortunately, the plot’s simplicity gave me plenty of time to appreciate the other problem with this Dreyfuss affair Reynolds has got going on: Dreyfuss is Wise and Right and the Designated Survivor, because he’s the main character. Which means that the women around him get to be mostly either wrong or dead. It’s not a great look, and while I wouldn’t normally expect better from hard SF, I do expect better from Reynolds.

I just — I just want this book not to be the new Reynolds. I want him to get over this and move on. I mean, if there’s another Dreyfuss book, I’ll read it, because I’ve read everything else Reynolds has written, and I still have hope. But I very much would like him to return to his better form. This is just a blah procedural mystery novel in space clothes. show less

¿Es Alastair Reynolds el mejor escritor de ciencia ficción de la década? Posiblemente.

Su particular visión de un futuro lejano es única. Un futuro en el que los grandes avances tecnológicos permiten casi cualquier cosa, y en el que los seres humanos se dividen en diferentes razas dependiendo de cuál sea su nivel de dependencia por la tecnología. Y también están las máquinas, que forman una raza aparte. Pero lo que caracteriza a Reynolds es su manera de tratar estos temas. Alastair show more Reynolds no pretende otra cosa que entretenernos, y a fe mía que lo consigue. Para ello utiliza una prosa elegante y efectiva que nos atrapa desde la primera línea, creando unas atmósferas oscuras, siniestras, hipnóticas, de apabullantes ideas, y planteándonos escenarios plagados de acción y enigmas que se van desvelando paulatinamente.

'El prefecto', quinta novela de la serie 'Espacio Revelación', es ante todo un thriller de suspense, y se aleja de las anteriores novelas de la saga, aunque comparte su universo. Tom Dreyfus es un prefecto, una especie de policía, de Panoplia, uno de los diez mil hábitats que forman el Anillo Brillante, que rodea el planeta Yellowstone. Dreyfus tiene una nueva misión: investigar la destrucción de Ruskin-Sartorious, uno de estos hábitats, que a primera vista parece obra de los ultras. Para ello contará con la ayuda de sus dos ayudantes, ambos observados con aprensión por el resto de sus compañeros: Thalia Ng, que busca ser la mejor prefecto posible para redimir la traición de su padre, antiguo prefecto, y Sparver, un hipercerdo, apartado del grupo por razones obvias.

Pero detrás de lo que parece una trama de asesinato múltiple, se esconden fuerzas más poderosas, entre ellas Aurora, que se encuentra más allá de la humanidad y que busca la inmortalidad a toda costa.

Tom Dreyfus también tiene sus propios fantasmas. Su mujer fue asesinada por el Relojero, una enigmática figura que construía artilugios mecánicos capaces de las más crueles y terribles muertes..., o algo peor que la muerte, como le sucedió a la prefecto supremo Jane Aumonier, en cuya nuca el Relojero instaló un escarabajo que impide a Jane ser tocada e incluso dormir, a riesgo de morir inmediatamente.

'El prefecto' es un libro de aventuras y suspense, que aunque no llega al nivel del anterior, 'El desfiladero de la absolución', en cuanto a despliegue de ideas, si resulta igual de original y ameno de leer. show less

This might become one of my favorite Alastair Reynolds novels. Why? Because he manages to turn one hell of a tale out of a kitchen sink worth of ideas. Great characters, from an ex-jazz musician/gumshoe from an alternate-timeline 1959, to a complex archeologist 300 years in the future sifting through the remains of a nanotech-eaten Earth, to wormholes, body-snatching, one hellofacool mystery, with murder, Casablanca vibes, and a nail-biting space battle that reminded me of Iain M. Banks and show more Neal Asher in a huge way. Or, if I'm being literal to a fault, it reminded me of Alastair Reynolds at his best. :)

There's so much I could say about this book, but let me boil it down to the basics.

This particular Earth is caught in amber. Caught in a pre-nuclear, pre-computer state. And it is being kept that way. Was kept that way for 300 years until the future factions (heavy nanotech or purist humans) unlocked frozen Earth. Roll with this, Reynolds explains it all a lot better than me. :)

Enter in the conflicting factions to this lesser-tech Earth and follow the Noir gumshoe across Paris, murders, awesome alternate Earth worldbuilding, and fantastic characterizations.

Any one of these elements are noteworthy and a cool read, but Reynolds went all-out ambitious and tied EVERYTHING together in a huge way and I loved it. :) Really perfect for mystery lovers AND hardcore missile/laser beam fanatics. Oh, and horror fans, too. Creepy undead children. :) And didn't I mention body-hopping?

lol, I had too much fun with this. show less